Overall Discussion Paper
Athens Printing Company is a small family owned business. The company provides copy services for commercial businesses, as well as individuals. Athens Printing Company showed a need for improvement in various areas, but its shipping department showed the greatest need. Our group, The Consultants, suggested changes in the department that would increase efficiency and reduce costs associated with mistakes.
Our process improvement plan targeted areas in shipping which created excess costs and wasted time. Areas such as customers receiving wrong items were our main concern. Mistakes generated wasted time which consisted of paperwork, packing, and stocking of returned items. Through process improvement we hoped to decrease costs and create benefits that would encourage use of the new system. Costs associated with excess demand were also addressed.
The first step in our process was to separate dead stock from active stock physically. This step helped create a more organized workplace and create more much needed space. Next, we clearly labeled each item showing stock number, title and minimum quantity required in stock. By displaying the minimum quantity, we hoped to create a more efficient means of stocking books according to anticipated demand. And last, we organized stock numerically to construct a more user-friendly system and encourages use.
Mid-term goals and long-term goals were also considered in the implementatiods could be accounted for to show necessary production times. Sluggish sales can also be addressed in certain product lines, which could lead management to address the profitability of each individual book.
The cost to implement the process was a very minimal cost in comparison to what the company saved. The total cost ended up to be almost $40 dollars, which consisted of mostly supplies. The total cost compared to the savings was about 1.34%. This created a good situation for The Athens Printing Company where cash flow has been a problem. The cost was also very pleasing to the management because their resistant and severe change.
In conclusion, our process improvement project was a very exciting experience The Athens Printing Company. They, being a small family-owned business, were fertile ground for our suggestions. The implementation was constrained by a shortage of time and money at The Athens Printing Company. However, this tended not to be a problem since we were ever mindful of the do-able aspect of our proposal. Fortunately, the management was quit receptive and our ideas were approved and implemented. Once implementation had been accomplished, a semi chain-reaction was set off. They are more motivated to seek process improvement in other areas of their business now that it has been demonstrated that change does not bear excess cost.